Talk:Law of Singapore/Archive 2

Removal of "Legal developments" section

I've removed the "Legal developments" section from the article (the text removed is below) as without dedicated editors concentrating on this section it is difficult to keep up to date, and in any case the article is already a bit too long. If it is thought that , I would suggest that new articles entitled "Developments in Singapore law in 2006", "Developments in Singapore law in 2007", etc., be created. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 01:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Legal developments

January 2007

• In November 2006, a 17-year-old boy, Garyl Tan Jia Luo, was arrested for tapping into his neighbour's wireless Internet connection. He faced up to three years' imprisonment and a fine under the Computer Misuse Act. On 19 December, Tan pleaded guilty to the charge, and on 16 January 2007 he became the first person in Singapore to be convicted of the offence. He was sentenced by the Community Court to 18 months' probation, half of which was to be served at a boys' home. For the remaining nine months, he had to stay indoors from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am. He was also sentenced to 80 hours of community service and banned from using the Internet for 18 months; his parents risked forfeiting a S$5,000 bond if he failed to abide by the ban. Tan was also given the option of enlisting early for National Service. If he did so, he would not have to serve whatever remained of his sentence.
• As of 31 January, Singapore had 3,347 practising lawyers, down from 3,521 in 2000. Since about 1,600 law graduates qualified to become advocates and solicitors, this represented a net loss of 174 practitioners.

February 2007

• On 4 January 2007, a second man, Lin Zhenghuang, was charged for using his neighbour's unsecured wireless network to post a bomb hoax on-line. In July 2005, Lin had posted a message entitled "Breaking News – Toa Payoh Hit by Bomb Attacks" on an on-line forum managed by HardwareZone. Alarmed by the message, a forum user reported it to the authorities through the Government of Singapore's eCitizen website. Lin faced an additional 60 charges for using his notebook computer to illegally access the wireless networks of nine people in his neighbourhood repeatedly. Lin pleaded guilty to one charge under the Telecommunications Act and another nine under the Computer Misuse Act on 31 January. He apologised for his actions, claiming he had acted out of "stupidness" and not due to any "malicious or evil intent". On 7 February he was sentenced by District Judge Francis Tseng to three months' jail and a S$4,000 fine. The judge also set sentencing guidelines for future 'mooching' cases, stating that offenders would be liable to fines and not to imprisonment unless offences were "committed in order to facilitate the commission of or to avoid detection for some more serious offence", as it was in Lin's case.

March 2007

• 2 March – The members of the advisory board of the new School of Law of the Singapore Management University (SMU) are announced. The board will be chaired by former Chief Justice Yong Pung How, who has also been appointed Distinguished Fellow of the School. The other members of the board are:
  • Justice Andrew Phang, Judge of Appeal, Supreme Court of Singapore.
  • Justice V.K. Rajah, Judge, Supreme Court of Singapore.
  • Judicial Commissioner Sundaresh Menon, Supreme Court of Singapore.
  • Prof. Walter Woon, Second Solicitor-General.
  • Senior Counsel Michael Hwang.
  • Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, Chief Executive, Drew & Napier LLC.
  • Mr. Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara, Managing Partner, WongPartnership.
  • Ms. Lee Suet Fern, Senior Director, Stamford Law Corporation.
  • Mr. Kevin Wong, Managing Partner, Linklaters.
  • Mr. Chen Show-Mao, Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell.
  • Mr. Eduardo Ramos-Gomez, Managing Director, Duane Morris Singapore.
  • Mr. Richard Sauer, Associate General Counsel, Microsoft Operations.

  According to SMU President Prof. Howard Hunter, the new law school, which will open in August 2007 with 90 students, has already received a "substantial number" of applications. Its four-year programme will have a focus on corporate and commercial matters, with subjects including corporate finance and accounting. A third of its curriculum will be devoted to non-law subjects, and knowledge will be imparted in small group seminars.

• 8 March – It is announced in Parliament that a new law, tentatively called the Mental Capacity Act, will be introduced to enable people to appoint guardians who can manage their affairs should they lose their mental faculties later in life. The proposed Act will also enable parents of children with severe intellectual impairment to appoint persons to look after their children's welfare. The draft Bill is expected to be ready by May and will be followed by a public consultation exercise. In considering the new law, Singapore is following the lead of countries such as Germany, Hong Kong and the UK.
• 12 March – Figures and reports from the Disciplinary Committee Secretariat show that complaints against lawyers resulted in 28 investigations being completed in 2006, more than twice the number in 2005. Six were acquitted, nine were reprimanded or fined, and 14 were referred to a Court of Three Judges – the highest level of disciplinary action. Some of the investigations involved more than one lawyer in each case. In the cases that went before three-judge hearings from 2006 till now, eight lawyers were suspended from legal practice for periods ranging from six months to two years. One lawyer was ordered to pay legal costs of S$65,000 for the proceedings, believed to be the highest amount in recent times. The most common complaints involved lawyers who offered commissions for conveyancing business, as well as others who failed to advise their clients properly on property matters. The lawyers involved in the investigations completed last year had between six and 43 years of experience. To address the problem, the Singapore Academy of Law intends to publish a book on professional ethics in the second quarter of 2007, to summarize core principles and serve as a guide to the ethical issues that lawyers encounter in professional practice. Also, from this year the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law is offering a new optional module entitled "Conflicts and Obligations in Legal Ethics" for undergraduates, which deals with a lawyer's ethical requirements, how they impact their work, and how to handle difficulties raised by ethical obligations.